


any moment we can fly

by aceofdiamonds



Series: i've been dreaming // parvati patil has a thing with harry potter au [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Gen, Post-War, the relationship is more of a discussion sort of abstract sort of thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-22
Updated: 2014-10-22
Packaged: 2018-02-22 05:50:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2496800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aceofdiamonds/pseuds/aceofdiamonds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s not until Saturday morning that Harry wanders back into her mind. Contrary to what Hermione may think, Parvati hasn’t been thinking solely of Harry for the past few years. Yes, she was sad when it ended with a hurried kiss and a promise of later but then there was a summer full of fear and fog and then there was Snape as Headmaster and Dean on the run and half of her classmates gone and torture at the hands of teachers and when all of this is happening it’s hard to focus on the sort of relationship she used to have with the boy at the centre of this whole thing.</p>
<p>parvati and hermione have a coffee and talk about their lives. they talk about harry and harryandparvati but it's more than that. </p>
<p>this is parvati's life after the war and how she got to this point</p>
            </blockquote>





	any moment we can fly

**Author's Note:**

> i have all these other things i'm working on but i keep getting blocked with them and so i turn to sequels of things i did months ago. the way to go. parvati patil takes up a large place in my harry potter heart. i want to give her everything and more. that might come after this.

The Atrium, for all its ornate statues and numerous benches, isn’t as much a social hub as one might think, its use primarily for shuttling people between Muggle London and their work as quickly and efficiently as possible. For this reason, Parvati isn’t keeping her head up when she makes her way towards the Floo exits, the thought of seeing anyone she knows is unlikely and anyway, she wants to get home, her feet hurt.

It’s a surprise, then, when someone says her name. The surprise grows when Parvati turns to see Hermione Granger standing beside her.

“Hermione.” She blinks, confused. It’s not that she hasn’t seen Hermione around the Ministry, the place isn't _that_ big, but they haven’t spoken in a while. Different departments, different circles. “Hi.”

“Hi,” Hermione says breathlessly. She smiles and Parvati feels her mouth bend to match, her forehead still creased. “I can’t believe we ran into each other like this.”

"It's good to see you," Parvati replies, and it is. She misses school sometimes, the protection of those walls that ended up being merely an illusion of safety. She misses her four-poster bed and Charms and the lemon tart at dinner. She misses when everyone was whole. "How've you been?"

“Would you like to get coffee?”

“Oh --” Parvati glances towards the fireplaces where the queues are dying down then back to Hermione who looks flushed and older than she saw her last but content, like things are going right in her life. “Sure, why not.”

They walk in silence to a coffee shop round the corner from the Ministry entrance, finding a seat by the window. Parvati adds her milk and sugar, sipping it before adding another sugar, waits for Hermione to speak.

“You’re in Magical Cooperation, aren’t you? I had a meeting with someone a couple of weeks ago, Jamie I think her name was?”

“Blue hair?” Hermione nods. “Yeah, that’s Jamie. She’s something else, isn’t she?”

Hermione laughs. “That’s one word for her. She was nice, very friendly.”

“Jamie’s the best when it comes to drawing up laws with foreign leaders. They seem drawn to her. I think it’s the hair.” Parvati loves that part of her job, bridging gaps between one country to the next, helping bring the wizarding world closer together. Last week they had had a meeting about the latest Triwizard Tournament, the first since their fourth year. The following debate on safety regulations and the absurdity of bringing back the event after such an ending previously had been brought back to the original point by Parvati who had offered the opinion that circumstances are vastly different from the last competition and that it was highly unlikely such a thing would happen again. This had been, quite fairly, she supposes, with a wide variety of curses in many languages. They still haven’t come to a conclusion. She doesn’t relay this to Hermione because of the sensitive subject and because she’s decided Hermione probably knows about it anyway. The three of them, the Golden Trio as they had been so affectionately known, probably know everything there is to know in the world of magical politics. Parvati doesn’t envy them. “So, what have you been up to?”

“Oh, nothing much,” Hermione sighs, before launching into something about fairies and centaurs and flying. Parvati feels a jolt of nostalgia hit her as she tunes out 80% of the words, picking up the trick she learned years ago of catching all the vital words Hermione was saying. It did wonders for her History of Magic exam. “ -- and I really don’t know what Terry thinks he’s doing because there’s just no way the Merpeople would go for it --”

“Terry? Terry Boot? From the DA?”

“Yeah he’s my partner.” Hermione pauses then adds: “In the ministry. Not at home.”

“I got that,” Parvati says with a laugh. “Ron still surprising us all?”

Hermione eyes her for a second as though working out the tone behind her remark, scathing or teasing. Parvati winks which seems to reassure her as she says, “He surprises me every day,” and then they both laugh, and it feels like something that couldn’t have happened at school no matter how much they wish they could back and do it over but they have this moment now, and that counts for something. “Oh, Parvati, I’m so sorry I should have asked sooner, how is Lavender doing?”

“Don’t worry about it, Hermione,” Parvati replies, but she’s touched Hermione thought to ask. They all do, the Hogwarts crowd, whenever Parvati runs into them, which isn’t often. “She’s... improving. The scarring isn’t quite as bad as when she was first attacked but the psychological side -- she’s not who she used to be,” she says sadly, directing her eyes to the table.

“Parvati --”

“She’ll get there,” Parvati says, a little loudly. It’s how she’s been coping, see. Say the positive statements loud and bold and maybe they’ll come true. Her and Lavender have always been a touch superstitious, maybe a little more than a touch when they were thirteen and Divination was the most fascinating thing they’d ever seen, but now it hurts to have so much faith in nothing. “St. Mungo’s have been great.”

“They really have,” Hermione agrees. “It’s really admirable the work they do. I couldn’t do it.”

Parvati thinks of the long cool corridors, the smell of something she can never label, the sad looks that follow her as she walks past each window. “No. Me neither.”

It’s quiet for a long moment, both women sipping their drinks, their attention on the world outside. It’s sunny, blue skies abundant, but there’s a chill in the air. It’s October now and it’s finally beginning to feel like autumn after a few extra weeks of mild sunshine that had left everyone puzzled and cautiously accepting. A man struts past, his coat flapping around him not unlike the typical protagonist’s in a Muggle film. They watch a woman with two young children get on a big red bus, the smaller of the two picking a penny up from the ground and clambering on seconds before the doors slide shut. A girl with her arm in a cast pushes open the door to the cafe, the wind blowing it closed again with a muffled thud.

“Harry and Ginny broke up a couple of months ago,” Hermione says, stirring her coffee slowly. She lifts her eyes to watch Parvati’s reaction, her gaze steady and sure and _knowing_.

“Oh. Me too,” Parvati replies, backtracking at once. “I mean, I broke up with my boyfriend recently, too.” Sam had been nice enough, a journalist for the Prophet with a great flat in SoHo, but after a few months she realised how bored she was with the relationship and ended it. It would have been idealistic, but cruel, to stick around simply for the flat. "Last month," she finishes.

Hermione’s smile is hovering close to a smirk and Parvati feels like she’s on one of those game shows Muggles love, the floor falling away beneath her if she answers wrong. “You should owl him. Harry, I mean. I think he’d like that.”

Parvati arches an eyebrow. "And why is that?"

"The way things ended with you was unfair," Hermione says bluntly. "You don't know how things would have worked out between you."

"Maybe the way all school romances fizzle out."

"Maybe. Or maybe this should be given another chance."

"I didn't take you for a romantic, Hermione," Parvati says, smiling round the rim of her mug.

Hermione rolls her eyes. "Harry needs someone. He should be happy. Running into you today was --"

"A sign?" Parvati laughs. "Don't tell me you're interested in Divination after all."

"Oh, stop that."

“Hermione, let’s be straight with each other here. I know you know about sixth year and Harry and I, and I appreciate the secrecy even though we weren’t that bothered about keeping quiet, it was just how it happened, Padma knew -- Anyway, what I’m saying is that it’s been five years. I don’t think Harry’s losing sleep over me.”

“Losing sleep, maybe not,” Hermione concedes, “but I’m sure he’d be happy to hear from you.”

Parvati narrows her eyes. “You’re trying to set us up.”

“Does it count if you’ve already been together? You already know what he’s like. I’m not springing anything new on you.”

“Hermione, I haven’t seen Harry in a while but I think I'm right in saying twenty two year old Harry is not the same boy I was with five years ago.” He had been involved in a war from the inside out before, carrying grief and power and need around his shoulders, the pressure so heavy Parvati could feel it when she touched him. He had been young and dangerous and so sad but when it was just the two of them she likes to think he had been happy. She knows she had been. “He’s probably forgotten all about me.”

“I think you made quite a mark on him,” Hermione says, and she’s full on grinning now, not even bothering to hide her enjoyment. Merlin. Romance and signs aside, this isn’t the Hermione from school. “Listen: there’s a group of us meeting in the Leaky Cauldron next Saturday night -- you should come.”

Parvati’s been invited to these gatherings before over the last couple of years; she turned up the first couple of times but there had been too many war stories, too much talk of the scenes that still scare her sometimes when she thinks about it for too long. She has other friends now: Olivia from Magical Creatures, Jamie from two cubicles down from Parvati’s in Magical Cooperation, a couple of others from the apartment complex she moved in to three years ago. And of course, there’s still Lavender.

“It would be nice to see him again,” she finds herself saying, tearing up a packet of sugar as she thinks. “Be nice seeing everyone. I feel like I haven’t in forever.”

“Come then,” Hermione says, her smile turning triumphant at the edges, her plan falling into place. Parvati wonders for a second if this was her ulterior motive the whole time then finds she doesn’t mind.

"I'll think about it," and doesn't promise anything more. She finishes the last of her drink, dropping the cup back onto the saucer with a too-loud clatter. "I better be getting home."

“Oh, me too. Ron’s making stew tonight that he swears will be just as good as his mother’s.”

Parvati laughs, feels a twinge of jealousy at the fondness Hermione has in her voice, but honestly, she’s happy those two finally got their shit together. “Harry told me all about Mrs Weasley’s cooking, sounds like it’ll be impossible to live up to.”

“Takeaways are something I’ve become accustomed to.”

“Well you can’t go wrong with that,” Parvati says, wrapping her scarf around her neck.

“I wanted to thank you, actually,” Hermione says as Parvati stands.

“For what?”

“That year was hard for Harry.” She ducks her head with a huff of a laugh. “Not that the rest were a walk in the park -- But there was a lot going on in his head that he wasn’t telling us, about Sirius and Voldemort, and Ron and I were wrapped up in our own mess and, well, what I’m trying to say is thank you for being there for him. I didn’t know what was going on with him for a good amount of the year, all those nights he would disappear for hours, but I know he was happy and that's thanks to you, so...” She trails off, smiles tentatively.

Parvati feels closer to her in this moment than she ever did at school.

“You’re welcome. And, hey, despite all the talk of my ex, this was nice.”

Hermione smiles. “It was, wasn’t it?”

  
  


.

  
  


It’s not until Saturday morning that Harry wanders back into her mind. Contrary to what Hermione may think, Parvati hasn’t been thinking solely of Harry for the past few years. Yes, she was sad when it ended with a hurried kiss and a promise of later but then there was a summer full of fear and fog and then there was Snape as Headmaster and Dean on the run and half of her classmates gone and torture at the hands of teachers and when all of this is happening it’s hard to focus on the sort of relationship she used to have with the boy at the centre of this whole thing.

And _after_. After required more adjusting than Parvati could ever had imagined. Getting out the other side relatively unscathed (physically at least, mentally is a whole other story) she had helped with the clean-up, building the safest place in Britain back up from the rubble it had been reduced to while it fought to protect them. There had been the wounded, too. She hadn’t been as much help there, not like Cho Chang who had spent her year out of Hogwarts flitting around the country where and when she was needed to tend to those who needed help, but Parvati had offered what she could, if all that entailed was holding a scared child’s hand and promising it was all over.

_After_ she has to work on healing herself, on getting to a place where she doesn’t panic every time she picks up her wand or steps outside her front door. She reads fantasy books set in worlds that seem so far from her’s and yet somehow the same. She helps her mum and dad around the house, focusing on cooking the meals of her childhood and sitting down with her mum to mend this sari or this skirt.

She heals herself. Slowly. Almost completely.

  
  


.

  
  


_After_ there was _so much_ going on in her own life she couldn't begin to imagine what it would be like in Harry's.

  
  


.

  
  


It’s hard to get back into thinking about romance and relationships and what shoes go with what dress when your best friend’s face has been slashed by a werewolf and you regularly have nightmares about everyone you know dying. But after a while she begins to try. She smiles at Max from the Post Office, flirts a little with Seamus in the pub, flirts a lot with someone tall, dark, and handsome in the Three Broomsticks and never gets his name. Goes back to Seamus. Takes things further. Takes things too far. It takes a couple of weeks for them to go back to how it was before, blushes and bumped hands making appearances too often but they get there. She doesn’t look inside her friendship group again.

The thing about dating is that it’s fun, she knows this. She’s read the books, seen the films. She had that year with Harry; she _knows_ how great kissing is. She _wants_ it. But it’s hard because now she’s so cautious of everything, examining everyone so much, so sure they’re someone in disguise. The war has crept into this part of her life too and she _hates_ it.

So there was a couple of times with a man from the floor above her at work and then there had been a disastrous date with Mandy Brocklehurst’s brother and then there had been Sam, her longest to date by far, and now she’s here, thinking about Harry Potter.

She remembers fleeting moments of missing Harry so much it hurt, cutting down where her chest was bruised from being pushed against the wall by that Slytherin with no voice, all muscle. She remembers the Room of Requirement where she helped comfort the younger kids who spent their nights trying not to cry and wondering what he was doing out there, hoping he was safe, hoping that it was all coming to an end. She remembers everything she felt for him but it wasn’t something she was going to hold on to forever.

But now she is thinking about him. She’s remembering all the evenings spent in empty classrooms and secret passageways and she’s smiling because even with everything going on it had been fun and a little special and so she thinks what’s the harm in going along tonight. If it turns out badly there’ll be a whole lot of other people there to talk to. It’ll be fine.

And anyway, she wants to talk to Hermione again, see how Ron’s stew had turned out, and Ginny might be there and Dean and Luna and -- now she’s thinking about them she wants to see them all. She wants to talk to Harry just for the sake of talking. To tell him about her life and hear about his. It’s one thing hearing gossip through the grapevine, it’s another listening to someone tell you all about it. It’s been too long. She misses that part of her life. She’ll go this time and maybe next time Lavender will come too.

She flicks her wand, her favourite lipstick flying across the room towards her hand, and when she turns to the mirror she smiles, excited.

  
  
  


.

  
  
  


Parvati fights with the door, pushing inside just as the wind whips her hair around her face. It's not the most dignified of entrances. She pushes her hair away over her shoulder and turns her head to find the table of her old classmates. There. In the corner. She finally gets the rest of her hair out of her face and when she looks up at just the right moment, so much falling on timing, Harry lifts his head from his conversation with Seamus. He smiles. Parvati moves away from the door and into the room.

  
  
  



End file.
